Natural Dyeing Workshops

Exploring natural dyeing techniques to create a variety of colours and effects on silk and wool. Create a variety of colour samples and some fabric to use in a textile project such as a scarf or cushion.

This is an introduction to processes through which you can achieve colours from plants that grow all around us. Such as gorse, nettles, walnut, onion skins, dandelion, oak. We will go for a walk and see what natural dye plants are available to us in the landscape, we can gather some plants for the dye pot. These are softer earthy colours - the colours of our landscape. We will be using Non-toxic plant mordants - tannin, natural acid, and symplocos (an alternative to alum).

We will also create strong, vivid colours using traditional dye plants such as madder and weld. These plants have been used for thousands of years to colour the textiles of our ancestors all around the world.

We will apply simple shibori resist techniques using clamps, wood blocks, and string to create patterns on the fabric.

Come to the indigo dyeing day on the Sunday. On this day, we will be learning how to make and dye with an indigo dye vat to make beautiful pure blues. We will also be expanding our colour range by over dyeing to create purples, greens, and browns.

Cost: £95, including two pieces of organic silk to dye, and a range of colour samples from the day I am open to skill shares and exchanges. £160 for the Saturday and the Indigo Workshop on the Sunday

If it is booked up, I do sometimes have cancellations, so it is worth adding your name to the waiting list.

Explore indigo vat dyeing and shibori resist techniques to create beautiful patterned textiles. Learn traditional methods of shibori resist dyeing - folding, clamping, scrunching, and stitching create repeat patterns. A practical guide to how to create, dye with, maintain, and dispose of an organic indigo dye vat. You can bring natural clothes or textiles to put in the dye vat. I will have some linen and organic cotton available. Come away with a dyed upcycled garment, or fabric to make in to something like a scarf, or cushion.

If you come on the Saturday, bring your dyed fabric back to over dye to create greens, purples, and browns.

Please bring a packed-lunch.Cost: £85, including a length of organic cotton. I am open to skill shares and exchanges.

If it is full up, I do sometimes have cancellations, so it is worth adding your name to the waiting list.

Learn how to create beautiful patterns and prints on fabric using flowers, leaves, roots, and barks through a binding and steaming process. An overview of what natural dye plants you can grow in your garden or find in the hedgerow, working with processes that give strong and long lasting colour. Explore different mordants and modifiers you can make and use for a variety of effects. Over dyeing bundles with indigo to give more variety of colour, watching colours transform in the indigo dye vat.

No fancy equipment needed - everything you learn you will be able to do at home.

All materials included. 1m of silk, all the plants dyes mordants, and modifiers you need.

A workshop that combines the ancient craft of peg loom weaving with a space to reflect, dream and make. A time to busy the hands and quiet the mind as we explore different fibers, colours and ways of working with raw wool. Everyone will leave with their own unique sitting matt and will have learnt about weaving, how to thread the peg loom and how to weave to create different patterns and blocks of colour.

I am have a background in the arts, nature connection, facilitation and group work. This workshop reflects the alchemy of a craft based on raw materials from the land and the processes that turn it into something new. It is a time to embody a craft and allow our hands to lead the process. Over the last 8 years I have been weaving and developing these dreaming mats; travelling to meet shepherds, small holders weavers, spinners and small flocks, exploring how fibre can be used to connect communities and build connection with the land.

Come to this workshop as a one day workshop, or come to this Introduction to Natural Dyeing workshop on the Saturday as well, at a discounted rate of £160 for both workshops.